A lot happened in a year. Perhaps not much in quantity, but certainly relevant enough to leave marks that are hard to ignore. The real question was: where to begin?
...
Elise went on a journey. With her ability to fly and her speed, she reached much further than we could have ever achieved in the same timeframe. I suppose she was excited to explore, to feel that freedom.
According to the messages she sent, she passed through several cities: some she only observed from a distance, others she flew over without stopping, and in a few, she descended directly. Currently, she is residing near—or within—one of them; I'm not entirely clear on that, only that from her descriptions, it is larger than the one Hannah and I are in. She arrived there approximately one month after starting her adventure.
I suspect she must have caused more than one accident… or done things she'd rather I didn't find out about.
Still, I am worried. Her reports became increasingly spaced out, and her replies to my messages more short and evasive. I know she is hiding something, though I can't say for sure if it's something truly bad. I received the last message a month ago.
Her main body remains in a state similar to hibernation, with her entire mind concentrated on the avatar so she can feel "mortal" once again. This prevents me from communicating from that side. The plan was always to let her exploit her capabilities without restrictions… but even so, I can't help but be uneasy. At least I know nothing truly grave has happened: if it had, she would have alerted me, or her main body would have already awakened.
...
Tonks… Well, Tonks gave birth. At five months pregnant.
Yes, it was premature. Very premature. And to make matters worse, she gave birth without even realizing it… while she was sleeping.
Panic seized everyone when she woke up one morning with her belly completely flat, as if she had never been pregnant. In fact, the minimal growth of her abdomen during those months meant her body didn't even seem compromised by the pregnancy, leaving her looking almost the same as always.
Fear, horror, confusion. The entire Fief went into a state of alarm trying to understand what had happened, while Tonks fell into a fit of hysteria.
And if you think it was terrifying that the baby was born without her noticing… you can't imagine what it was like when it tried to climb back in.
Right now, I am in the Fief, sitting on a bench in front of a wide courtyard, watching my son… daughter… whatever it is.
Yes, perhaps genetic edits should be better regulated and not limited to just cranking certain characteristics to the maximum. Especially when one of the parents—me—is not human and possesses an extremely mutable lineage due to his abilities.
What is moving in front of me is nothing other than an amorphous mass, similar to jelly or some kind of semi-liquid, of a striking pink color.
Yes. The result of my lineage, added to the decision—conscious and shared with Tonks—to maximize the Metamorphmagus ability and ensure, above all, the pink hair of our child.
I won't deny it: I was childish. And after the initial fear, followed by the relief that everything had turned out… relatively well, I fought with all my might to give him a name.
"Ditto." Because he is practically exactly that. Only in a charming bubblegum pink tone.
I won't lie: the initial scare, the idea that something had gone truly wrong, affected me. But it wasn't too difficult. Thanks to the connection I have with my children—and with my non-human daughters from before—I was able to get used to it quickly. Now, in fact, I can't help but laugh when I see the little guy. The same goes for doing… well, anything.
He is intelligent. Much more so than any of my other children at birth, though he remains, undoubtedly, a child. Right now, he amuses himself by letting his gelatinous body sway with the wind, jumping for no apparent reason, deforming, and returning to his original shape. I think absolutely everything is entertaining to him. Especially crashing his semi-liquid body against mine.
Mind you… I might be the only one who took it so well. Tonks didn't. She is devastated.
When she realized that that—that pink, amorphous, living creature—was the child she had carried in her womb, she suffered a profound shock. And it was even worse when she understood that it happened as a direct consequence of the decisions we both made earlier.
That day, I had two crying babies in front of me. Well... only one. Ditto didn't really cry; he just became sad seeing his mother cry. That was all.
Helping Tonks accept him was extremely difficult. She went from blaming me—as she was used to—to blaming herself for "doing that to her son." Then came the denial: she couldn't recognize him as such, couldn't call him "son," couldn't look at him for too long.
I was very glad to have brought more people to help contain her. Andromeda was one of the most important, and I thanked my past self for bringing her specifically for situations like this… well, not exactly this, but to be with Tonks when she gave birth.
And it wasn't just Tonks who reacted badly. Many of the women saw Ditto as a cursed child. They didn't despise him, but they looked at him with pity. They couldn't understand, as I did, that it was simply a different form of life. To them, he was a child condemned to a horrible form.
It was like seeing a child born with an extreme deformity... but multiplied by a thousand. Perhaps only I truly understood what Ditto was. And I regretted not having brought Ruby and Gemma; they would have made explaining it much easier.
Convincing the rest that everything was okay wasn't simple, but I managed it over the following days. The first one I tried to make understand was Andromeda, so she could help me with Tonks, who had isolated herself from everyone in a very unhealthy way. The kind you would recommend treating psychiatrically.
The new grandmother was worried, but Ditto eventually won her heart. I don't know if he perceived the family bond, but he grew attached to her… though not as much as with me.
After spending time with him, her look of pity transformed into something like understanding. She had already had contact with Ruby, so she could accept a racial difference, even if Ditto's was much more marked. At least Ruby kept a humanoid half and tried to blend in with humans.
With my mother-in-law's help, we tried to pull Tonks out of that pit. It wasn't easy. I used blood magic to forcibly stabilize her emotionally, and then Andromeda gave her a monumental scolding:
"How are you unable to recognize the fruit of your womb?"
That was enough for Tonks to leave the room and stop crying… more or less. For a while, she continued with her lamentations. It wasn't uncommon to see her burst into tears while looking at Ditto, convinced that this was her son and that he was like this solely because of her fault.
It was time that eventually fixed things. As I said, Ditto is intelligent, though clearly not human. That complicated some things… but in everything else, he turned out to be incredibly childlike: watching him roll, climb, stick to our legs, vibrate with laughter when something tickled him… little by little, those small scenes made Tonks stop seeing him as an accidental abomination and start seeing him for what he was: our son, with a particular condition.
Comparing his situation to that of wizard families who have Squib children helped. It wasn't the best example, but it was enough to pull her out of her mental agony and make her look at Ditto in another way.
Getting her to accept him, to become "herself" again and to become a decent—perhaps even exemplary—mother took months. Constant interaction was the best medicine: seeing the fruit of our love doing his antics, learning, expressing himself… and, above all, working with him to refine his shape-shifting ability. Getting him to develop a mouth and big, sad eyes was a slow but rewarding process when I saw Tonks's reaction.
That was the point of stillness. Tonks stopped crying from sadness and started crying from tenderness while hugging our son. The promise that in the future he could adopt a human form also helped a lot. In the end, she understood that Ditto wasn't a curse; he was simply the extreme evolution of her own ability. Since then, they are almost never apart.
Tonks is a good mother. It took effort, yes, but now she is completely devoted to him… perhaps too much. She cares for him as if he were fragile, when Ditto is quite resistant and intelligent in several aspects. Treating him like a completely normal child isn't quite right either.
Finally, I now have a maternal Tonks and a Slime Doppelganger son. I am happier than before.
Of course, there were also… small personal losses. Due to Ditto's peculiar biology, Tonks didn't develop breast milk, and her body barely changed after the pregnancy. To anyone else, it would be irrelevant… but I mourned it more than I would admit out loud.
Ditto can eat perfectly well—I've seen him devour fried chicken leg, even the bone—it's just that his digestion is quite slow, but he can process almost anything. But since he didn't need to breastfeed from the start, Tonks didn't develop that part. And yes, maybe I was childish to regret it so much… I even proposed "solutions" that earned me a good punch. I think it will be better to wait before thinking about another child with Tonks; what happened this time was already a lot for her. But I could look for other ways to fill her breasts with milk.
Over time, I also had to explain an uncomfortable truth: I am not as human as I seemed, and that inevitably influences my children. It wasn't easy to accept for many of the women present. They weren't racist, but it was natural to feel fear at the possibility of bringing children into the world who were too different.
I clarified that Ditto's case was due to extreme edits and that normally our children would be largely human… if not completely human, if they so desired.
In the end, Andromeda approached to hug me, burying my face between her breasts while assuring me she didn't care what the children were like, as long as they were ours. Without further delay, she began to undress with the clear intention of starting to conceive them.
I didn't know if her words were entirely true, but at that moment I didn't care; I only wanted to give all my love to her and all those present. A small orgy broke out, in which I struggled to include Tonks, who initially just wanted to withdraw with our son. The little guy observed the scene with pure and innocent curiosity, devoid of any sexual nuance. To tell the truth, I think he is an asexual being, at least until we discover if the limits of his metamorphosis allow him to develop functional sexual organs.
When we return from this campaign, many will be surprised to meet Tonks's son. I don't think I can take him to the outside world until I make sure he can adopt a human form… or something like it.
Now that I think about it… none of my children have turned out to be completely human so far. Maybe I should put the edits aside for a while, or at least ensure one or two "normal" children, just so as not to reinforce the non-human monster image that some are beginning to have of me. Not that I care too much… but I'd prefer not to feed unnecessary fears.
On the other hand… [Offspring Edition] reached Level 3.